Royalty Tours USA

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Schedule for the w/o 6/28

Here's the game plan for the week ahead:

Tuesday Mariners at Yankees 7:05PM

Wednesday Mariners at Yankees 7:05PM

Thursday Mariners at Yankees 1:05PM

               Altoona at Reading 7:05PM

Friday Phillies at Pirates 7:05PM

Saturday Athletics at Indians 7:05PM

Sunday Mets at Nationals 1:35PM

            Akron at Bowie 6:05PM

Please check back to see it turned out.

Hope you have a good week as well.

Yours truly,

Prince Charming

Royalty w/o 6/21 in review

As the Mets radio announcer says and I quote after a Met win "put it in the books".

The same can be said for our lives. Another week has come and gone.

Here's a recap of how things played out in the life of royalty.

Monday was a night off to recharge and refuel for the week at Citi Field watching the last installments of this year's interleague play.

Tuesday night the Detroit Tigers made their first visit to Citi Field.

Shortly before the game I found out Justin Verlander, the Tigers ace, was pitching against the Mets Jonathon Niese who has pitched great. So I said to myself I'm in for a good one tonight. In this case, I wish I was right. But it didn't take long to be proven wrong. Justin Verlander gave up 2 runs in the first inning. In addition, the game was moving at a snail's pace then we had a 58 minute rain delay to boot in the 3rd inning. So instead of being a good good night it become a long long night. When the game resumed the Mets bats came alive as they chased Verlander and a few relievers as they broke open the game. They lead 10-0 after the third. Jerry Manuel, the Mets manager, decided to let Niese pitch so he could have a chance to win the game by pitching 5 innings. Unfortunately Niese failed to do so even with the big lead. He left with 2 outs in the fifth inning as the Tigers got within 5 runs, 11-6. The Mets tacked on 3 more runs in the 6th. They wound up winning, 14-6!

Wednesday night R.A. Dickey pitched a gem.

 He tamed the Tigers for 8 innings. K-Rod was called on to pitch the ninth inning to a chorus of boos. The crowd wanted Dickey to finish what he started like they did back in the good old days. Jerry Manuel didn't give him that opportunity. K-Rod did close it out and the Mets won again, 5-0!

It should noted during the game our friend and royalty customer Manny Morales stopped by to say hello to the King & I. It's always a pleasure to see visitors especially good people like Manny who was at Citi as part of his "Saturday Plan".

It seems odd but the Mets don't give their weekend plan holders all the games on either Saturday and/or Sunday. Instead, they throw in some mid week games. A creative marketing plan on their part to sell less attractive games as part of the total package.

Thursday night the Mets were looking for the sweep. The Tigers were throwing Armando Galarraga who was robbed of a perfect game just a few weeks ago. The Tigers took a 6-1 lead midway through this one but the Mets stormed back to pull within 2 at 6-4 after 6 innings. They managed to add another run in the seventh to get within one but they couldn't claw their way all the way back. They lost 6-5!

As the rock group Meatloaf said in one of their songs 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

 Friday night the Minnesota Twins made their first visit to Citi Field as well.

 The Mets behind Mike Pelfrey who picked up his 10th win of the season. The Mets won, 5-2!

 Saturday was a double dip. It should be noted that my Cousin Andy met me at Citi Field and he did the doubleheader as well.

As always, he was grateful to have the privilege of our company. He always has a great time when he sees us. He left me a voice mail today thanking me for giving him the opportunity to enjoy himself even though it was just for one day.

When I heard it I was so happy.

 First up the Twins played the Mets again. This time the Twins evened the series at 1. The Twins were facing their former ace, Johan Santana who was traded to the Mets because he alleged turned down the Twins for greener pastures. For the Twins, it was payback time. They didn't waste any time getting to Santana who they roughed up for 4 runs in the first inning. Thanks to Carl Pavano who was given a nice cushion before he even threw a pitch, the Twins cruised to victory. Pavano wound up shutting down the Mets on a complete game 3 hit shutout. The Twins won, 6-0!

After the game, our friend Bryan Gilligan was kind enough to drive the King and I as well as my Cousin Andy to Staten Island where we were going to see the Staten Island Yankees play. The stadium is located right by the Ferry Terminal.

After the game, we boarded the Ferry to get back to Lower Manhattan.

As for the game, the Staten Island Yankees fell behind. 5-0 to the Hudson Valley Renegades who never looked back and they went on to win, 8-1!

Sunday we were back at Citi Field to see the rubber match between the Mets & the Twins. The Mets behind Jonathon Niese who pitched 6 shutout innings. The bullpen kept the Twins off the board as the Mets took 2 out of 3 again, 6-0 was the final score.

Jeff Francoeur, David Wright & Ike Davis supplied the power. They all hit home runs. Jason Bay, added a triple in this game which was his 1,000th major league hit.

In retrospect, it was a good week.

Stay tuned for the schedule for week ahead.

Thank you for following along.

Please feel free to voice your opinion.

Yours truly,

Prince Charming

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Royalty gets recognized by other roadtrippers!

Since I started my blog back in February, I've gotten in contact with other people who like to do what I do. That being attending live sporting events.

Thanks to fellow roadtripper and friend, Sean MacDonald who lives in Japan who gave me the final push I needed to get my blog off the ground. Sean is a world traveler himself. He's seen numerous live sporting events in different parts of the world. We always meet up when he comes here to the United States.

He has a website and a blog of his own.

Here's the link: http://www.sportsroadtrips.blogspot.com/

A few months ago on posted a comment on his blog.

As a result, another fellow roadtripper, Andrew Van Cleve, who lives in Chicago right up the block from Wrigley Field no less decided to try and track me down. He e-mailed me and we've been in constant contact ever since. I was in Chicago last month and we met up.

He also has a website and blog.

Here's his link: http://www.anygame-anywhere.com/

When we met up we spoke and he seemed to be amazed by my rigorous schedule. When I came home he e-mailed me and told me about another guy named Paul Swaney. I followed up and I got in contact with Paul. Paul's from the Chicago area as well. Like Sean & Andrew, he has a website as well.

Here's his link: http://www.stadiumjourney.com/

Paul asked me if I would share some secrets to my success to seeing on average 350 live sporting events a year. He interviewed me and I told him how I manage to do it.

Please feel free to check out his great website and you can become a member as well.

I did. You can read up on my answers.

He titled the article "A Royal Tour" it's dated today 6/22/10.

I look forward to meeting Paul in person some day down the road.

In the meantime, thanks to technology we can all track each other's lives. By doing so, we all better ourselves with knowledge that makes life more enjoyable for all of us.

Who will we be fortunate to meet next?

Check in periodically and find out. I have a blog roll that you can click on to access their sites as well as some others.

While I'm mentioning some newly found roadtrippers, I can't forget the Buffalo Boys aka USRT.

The Ultimate Sports Road Trip as they call themselves, Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell, these guys have done a tremendous job of marketing themselves to their family, friends as well as the media through their website & blog.

Most importantly, their great people and they're always ready to roll out the welcome mat if and when you go to Buffalo.

Here's their link: http://www.thesportsroadtrip.com/

If you're in the NYC area please feel to contact me.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman 

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Schedule for the w/o 6/21

Here's the game plan:

Tuesday Tigers at Mets 7:10PM

Wednesday Tigers at Mets 7:10PM

Thursday Tigers at Mets 7:10PM

Friday Twins at Mets 7:10PM

Saturday Twins at Mets 1:10PM

               Hudson Valley Renegades at Staten Island Yankees 7PM

Sunday Twins at Mets 1:10PM

Please check back to see how it played out.

Hope you have a good week doing whatever you have planned.

If you want to join the fun at Citi Field, feel free to stop by section 516 row 3.

Yours truly,

Prince Charming

Royalty w/o 6/14 in review

This week was not quite as eventful as the previous week but I still kept myself busy nonetheless.

After recharging the batteries Monday night, I was already to spend the rest of the week at Yankee Stadium watching interleague baseball with a ride to Coney Island to see the Brooklyn Cyclones Home Opener.

Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday the 2009 World Series was revisited.

The Philadelphia Phillies who lost to the Yankees in six games last October into early November came to back to the Bronx to play the Yankees.

It looked like a continuation by the Yankees when their ace CC Sabathia went to the mound against newly acquired ex-Blue Jay ace Roy Halladay. CC dominated and Roy Halladay struggled in this one. The Yankees went on to win 8-3!

The next night the ageless wonder 47 year old pitcher Jamie Moyer tamed the Yankees for 8 innings. He was hitting the spots with his off speed pitches. I believe his fastball tapped out at 82 MPH. The Yankees managed to get 3 hits including home runs by Robinson Cano & Jorge Posada. Outside of that, Moyer was untouchable. As a result, Moyer become the oldest pitcher to ever beat the Yankees. In the process, he recorded his 265th career win. The Phillies won, 6-3!

They survived a scare from their closer Brad Lidge who came in to get an inning of work. He was awful but fortunately for the Phillies they hung on for the victory.

Thursday night Kyle Kendrick who started for the Phillies picked up where Jamie Moyer left off. Kendrick pitched well as the Phillies took 2 out of the 3 from the World Champions. The Phillies won, 7-1! Andy Pettitte who started for the Yankees had a rough night. He took the rare loss as his record fell to 8-2 this season.

Friday night the Subway Series resumed at Yankee Stadium after the Mets took 2 out of 3 at Citi Field last month. The Mets were looking for their first win at the new Yankee Stadium. They were swept by the Yankees last year.

This year turned out to be different at least on Friday night despite pitching well Yankee pitcher Javier Vazquez took the loss due to no run support. He gave up a run in the first inning which proved to be the difference in this one as the Mets added runs in the 8th & 9th innings to hold on to win, 4-0 as K-Rod their closer did his best Brad Lidge impersonation.

Saturday the Yankees beat the Mets 5-3 despite the 2 home runs off the bat of Mets shortstop Jose Reyes. Reyes led off the game with a home run on the second pitch he saw off Phil Hughes. Hughes won the battle of the 9-1 pitchers as he went on to beat Mike Pelfrey who suufered his second loss of the season.

After that game, the King & I took the D train from the Bronx to Coney Island which is the last stop on the train. We arrived there at 5:15PM. We were going to see a minor league game between the Brooklyn Cyclones and the Staten Island Yankees. It was the Home Opener for the Cyclones at newly named MCU Park. It used to be called Keyspan Park. They play in the NY-Penn League which is Short Season A minor league baseball. Most of these players come right out of high school and/or college. This was a very sloppy played game with a comedy of errors. Staten Island committed 5 and the Cyclones had 2. The Cylcones wound up winning this mess, 9-6!

Today we were back in the Bronx for the Subway Series finale. CC Sabathia was facing Johan Santana. CC once again pitched like the salary he was given. Johan on the other hand, failed to match zeros with CC. He did for a few innings then the Yankees loaded the bases with no out in the third inning then Mark Teixeira delivered a "Tex" message that barely cleared the fence over the State Farm sign in leftfield for a grand slam which turned out to be all the scoring in the game.

Game, set, match!

The Yankees prevail again, 4-0!

The victory was the 9,500th win in the storied franchise's history since 1903.

Another week of attending baseball live is in the books.

Stay tuned for a post with the week ahead.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Schedule for the w/o 6/14

Here's the game plan:

Tuesday Phillies at Yankees 7:05PM

Wednesday Phillies at Yankees 7:05PM

Thursday Phillies at Yankees 7:05PM

Friday Mets at Yankees 7:05PM

Saturday Mets at Yankees 1:05PM

SI Yankees at Brooklyn Cyclones 6PM

Sunday Mets at Yankees 1:05PM

Check back to see how things turned out.

Hope you have a great week as well.

Royalty w/o 6/7 in review

Camden Yards
This past week was a rather eventful & historical one for royalty in general.

It started on Monday coming home after work to recharge the batteries since there was no local sporting events in the area for me to attend.

Tuesday I was back at Citi Field to see the Mets host the surprising San Diego Padres.

The game was moving very rapidly but I knew somehow it was going to go extra innings.

It never fails. As expected it went a few extra frames.

Mike Pelfrey pitched 9 innings which a rarity these days but since the score remained tied at 1 he had nothing to show for it.

In the end, the Mets were victorious again thanks to Ike Davis who ended the game in the 11th inning with a bomb of a home run that landed almost half way up the Pepsi Porch in right field.

The game still only took 3 hours and 2 minutes.

After mother nature caused Wednesday night's game to be postponed, I had to wait until Thursday night to attend another game.

Well it was definitely worth the wait.

The Mets won again, this time starting pitcher Jonathon Niese went the distance and allowed only one hit. He pitched masterfully in dominating the Padres allowing the lone hit, a double in the 3rd inning by centerfielder Chris Denerfia.

Another near perfect game!

The game took a mere 2 hours and 18 minutes.

In addition, the Padres turned a triple play in this game to add more history to the evening at the ballyard.

Needless to say, I really got my money's worth and then some.

Friday night I went to see the Houston Astros come to Yankee Stadium for the first time in the new Stadium which opened last year.

The last time the Astros played the Yankees in the Bronx was at the old stadium which now is no longer standing.

Ironically Friday was the seven year anniversary to the day that the Astros behind 6 pitchers held the Yankees hitless.

This time the Yankees managed to get 5 hits which led to 4 runs that were good enough for them to hold on & win, 4-3! The game took only 2 hours and 19 minutes to play.

Andy Pettitte started this game. He spent 3 years as an Astro from 2005-2007 before returning to the Yankees in 2008.

With the victory Andy notched his 237th lifetime win in the Major Leagues.

This win was his 200th win in a Yankee uniform. He joins Red Ruffing and Whitney Ford who are the only other ones to have 200 or more wins with the storied franchise.

Saturday was a royalty doubleheader with the games 206 miles apart.

In the afternoon, the King & I and our court, Frank & Bryan went to see the Yankees play the Astros again. Due to time constraints and logistics, we were only able to see 7 innings of this game.

Fortunately for us, Javier Vazquez who started for the Yankees pitched well for 7 innings.

The Yankees held a 9-3 lead when Royalty left the building and that's the way it stayed.

We were passing by the New Meadowlands Stadium as the game ended.

While we were there we did witness some more history.

Derek Jeter, the Yankee Captain and shortstop led off the game with a home run. It marked the 24th time he had done so which tied him with Rickey Henderson for the franchise record. For good measure he put the game out of reach with another homer in the sixth inning.

Jorge Posada added a grand slam home run which was his 250th of his career.

In the nightcap, we wound up seeing the Mets play the Orioles in Camden Yards as you can see in the picture.

Ironically we arrived just before game time. We got upstairs just in time to see Jose Reyes, the Mets shortstop and lead off hitter hit a lead off homer of his own.
Jeff Francoeur hit a home run in the eighth inning to provide some insurance as the Mets won 3-1!

Sunday were we back in the Bronx to see the Yankees sweep away the Astros, 9-5!

For the second day in a row, Jorge Posada hit a grand slam home run. By doing so he joined Bill Dickey who did it last for the Yankees back in 1937.

Robinson Cano hit a home run which was his 100th of his brief career.

Left fielder Chad Huffman who was just called up to replace the injured Marcus Thames made his major league debut and he got an infield single in his first major league at bat.

It turned out to be quite a week for royalty to say the least.

Stay tuned for the schedule of the week ahead in a separate post.

Remember I just state the facts. If you want to become part of the story let me know so I can arrange to have you on board for part or all of the ride even if it's just for one day.

Everybody deserves to have some fun in the sun.

Thank you for reading.

Please feel free to voice your opinions good, bad or indifferent.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

Monday, June 7, 2010

Schedule for w/o 6/7

Tuesday Padres at Mets 7:10PM

Wednesday Padres at Mets 7:10PM

Friday Astros at Yankees 7:05PM

Saturday Astros at Yankees 1:05PM

Mets at Orioles 7:05PM

Sunday Astros at Yankees 1:05PM

Check back for the royalty week in review.

Have a good week. If any of these games are in your plans please let me know so we can arrange to hook up.

Yours truly,

Prince Charming

A Fish Fry weekend at Citi Field!

Citi Field
As the weather warmed up over the weekend here in NYC so did the Mets.

The Florida Marlins came back to town after beating the Mets 2 out of 3 to open the season at Citi the first week of April.

This time the Mets turned up the heat at Citi Field and turned it into an all you could eat fish fry.

On Friday night, the Mets held on to beat the Marlins 4-3 after they came back from a 3-1 deficit. Francisco Rodriguez aka K-Rod gave the crowd a scare in the 9th inning as he struggled to close the door.

Saturday afternoon the Mets behind 7 strong innings from Jonathon Niese they came away with an easy 6-1 victory. In addition, they did it quickly. That game took only 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Yesterday afternoon the Mets completed the sweep of the Marlins in dramatic fashion.

The Mets fell behind 5-1 and 6-3 and they stormed back to squish the fish.

Jeff Francoeur hit a game tying 3 run home run in the 7th inning.

They scored the winning run in the 8th inning on a double play ground ball by Ike Davis.

In  the 9th inning, K-Rod did his best to scare the crowd again but once again he closed the door.

The Mets are now 22-9 at Citi Field.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Royalty gets a visit at Citi Field!

Bob Kelly, the King & I
On March 29, 2000 the King & I went to Japan to see the Mets open the season against the Chicago Cubs.

While we were there we met a couple, Dennis & Sue Kelly. They were originally from Long Island but they had moved to Irvine, California which is right outside Anaheim back in 1980.

We've seen each other a number of times over the years since.

Friday night at Citi Field we received a visit from Dennis Kelly's older brother, Bob Kelly who per Dennis' request stopped by to see the King & I.

We took this picture and I sent it to Dennis to prove Bob saw us.

Bob is from Virginia Beach, Virginia which is located near Norfolk.

Norfolk used to be the Mets Triple A affiliate. Needless to say, Bob was upset that they left.

Bob is an avid Met fan. He mentioned he was in Atlanta to see the Mets recently.

I remember meeting him when he joined Dennis & Sue to bid farewell to Shea Stadium, the Mets former home back in September 2008.

I want to thank Bob for making time to see us.

Section 516 Row 3 where Royalty resides at Citi Field!

Our View at Citi Field
This is the view the King & I have from our season seats at Citi Field.

Tonight is my 100th game there when the Marlins come back to take on the Mets at 7:10PM.

We'll be there the rest of the weekend as well so if you happen to be in the house feel free to stop by.